Anything and Everything
by Torina Archelda
Summary: A Christmas gift for WhiteCotton. Both Harry and Severus are struggling to overcome the shadows of the war, and this Christmas Harry is determined to win his friendship. HPSS friendship fic


Anything and Everything

By Torina Archelda

Begun 10/26/08 and completed 12/24/08

A Christmas gift for WhiteCotton. The prompt: "I would love to have Severus *sighs* being given the ONE present he never thought to receive. Ever." Does it count that I tried to follow the prompt, and didn't mean for it to turn into this? *hides*

This story is AU. The sixth and seventh books never happened; Severus is obviously alive, and he never stopped teaching potions.

Thanks to atypicalsnowman for the awesome beta!

Anything and Everything

Severus sighed heavily and sat down at his desk, resigning himself to another dull holiday season. The students had gone home this morning, and though he wouldn't miss their incessant chatter, he often found himself wondering over the holidays if the din of noisy teenagers wasn't preferable to the chilling silence that filled the castle when they were gone. Having spent most of his life alone it was strange that Severus found the silence so unbearable, but at least when there were rule-breakers to punish and dunderheads to instruct he was able to distract himself from the memories. With them gone, and little to occupy himself with aside from research projects that could not hold his attention in the emptiness the castle's occupants left behind, Severus was forced to face himself in the proverbial mirror every agonizing moment of every interminable day.

A hesitant knock on his door shook him from his reverie. "Come in," he snapped, plastering a sneer on his face but inwardly beyond grateful for the interruption. Anything but this silence.

A black-haired head with bright green eyes poked tentatively into his office, and the rest of the man quickly followed. Severus closed his eyes a moment and steeled himself. Anything.

"Severus?" His tone was concerned, and when Severus looked up he saw his eyes shone with it. He would not accept pity from this man.

"Yes, Professor Potter?" he replied, smirking inside and out when Potter frowned at that, as he always did. The pity was gone now**, **but Potter seemed more determined to do whatever he had come to.

"I just wanted to know if you'd accepted the Weasleys' invitation to spend Christmas at the Burrow, Severus."

Well. Almost anything.

"No, Potter, I have not. Just as I did not last year, nor the year before that, nor the year before that, nor any other time in years past when they saw fit to ask me to attend. Was there anything else, or did you come here solely to ask simpleminded Gryffindorish questions, _Professor_?"

Potter's frown deepened. "Is it really too much to expect for you to get over our history and show me enough respect to call me by my first name like you do the other professors?"

"Gryffindorish questions it is, then."

"Severus!" the boy- man now, Severus reflected- snapped, slamming his hands down on the desk in frustration. "I'm trying here. I've been trying all term. Trying to get to know who you really are, not the mask you showed me for seven years. Trying to get you to see that I'm not eleven anymore, and that I've never been my father- that I'll never _be_ my father- and maybe if you'd give me a chance I could prove all that to you! But you never let me- you just cut me down at every turn and treat me like nothing's changed between us! Damn it, Severus- how could nothing have changed?" His voice broke on the last words and Severus was forced to close his eyes again, his hands curling into fists and his mind flooding with memories. Images, sounds he never wanted to see or hear again- didn't want to feel.

"Damn you, Potter." There was a long moment's pause, and when Potter spoke again Severus' eyes still hadn't opened.

"I don't blame you, Severus. Do I have to tell you that again? I don't. How could I? You-" Potter swallowed thickly before going on- "You were a victim too." Potter paused. "It took me a long time, that whole year after the last battle… But I've accepted it, Severus. That… That it wasn't my fault. That there was nothing I could have done. Nothing _we_ could have done. You must realize-"

"Enough, Potter." It was too much. He couldn't sit here and listen to the delusional lies spilling from Potter's mouth. The memories were inundating the landscape of his mind, taking him over. Forcing him to recall the things he'd done- the things _they'd_ done- in excruciating detail. The pictures were painted across the backs of his eyelids, the terrified screams and the Dark Lord's delighted laughter ringing in his ears. Severus' eyes opened with a snap, and his gaze locked straight onto Potter's. "I will not have this conversation with you. Shut the door on your way out."

"I'm not leaving, Severus. Not until we've talked about this."

"There isn't anything to talk about!"

"How can you say that?" Severus watched in a mixture of horrified fascination and astonishment as Potter swallowed back tears. "Do- do _you_ blame _me_, Severus?"

Severus froze. For a single moment he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. Every fiber of his being was focused on the single most startling and ridiculous thing he had ever heard come from Potter's mouth. _Do you blame me, Severus?_ _He_, blame- What was Potter_ thinking_? "Why in the seven hells would you say that?" he snapped, finally regaining control of his faculties. His hands were shaking underneath his desk, and he couldn't begin to imagine how Potter would answer. His mouth parted slightly in shock as twin tears began to streak down Potter's face.

"I can't think of anything else that would explain the way you treat me," he replied, rubbing furiously at the tear tracks on his cheeks. It was no use, they continued to fall. "You're not as petty as you pretend to be; I can't believe you're still angry at me for the stupid things I did in school. And maybe you still see my father when you look at me, but that can't be all." Potter looked away; whether in an attempt to hide his tears or because he was embarrassed to continue, Severus didn't know. "You gave up your whole life to protect me, to help me fulfill that bloody prophecy. Who wouldn't resent that? And then…" Potter was the one to close his eyes this time, and Severus was intimately aware of exactly what he was seeing.

He had never been more furious, and he had never hated anyone in his life more than he hated himself in that moment.

"Look at me, Potter," he snapped, "because I am only going to say this once. Nothing that happened was your fault."

"I know that-"

"Silence! _Listen_, you stupid, stupid boy!" Severus stood, his whole body shaking with fury. "In all your nonsensical ramblings concerning a topic you never should have brought up in the first place, you said one thing right- _you_ were a victim of the Dark Lord's scheme. _You_ couldn't possibly have done anything to change what happened. I? I have been damned for years, Potter. Do you see this?" Severus furiously whipped up his left sleeve, exposing the Dark Mark to Potter. A reminder of his sins, forever etched into his flesh. "I took _this_, Potter. I made my choice years ago, and years of better choices since will never erase that. _I _took his mark. _I_ did his will. I made that bloody potion and I damned you to weeks of hell and _I_ deserve every single moment of the pain and suffering and _resentment_ you seem to imagine I'm wallowing in because _I did this_!" Severus was breathing heavily now, staring at Potter who was staring at the mark on his arm. He half expected the boy- _man_- to turn and run from the room. He couldn't be blamed for it; finally coming to terms with the fact that you were standing in the same room as your parents' murderer and the man who had brewed the mandatum potion and sentenced you to weeks of suffering at the hands of a megalomaniacal dark lord couldn't be an easy experience. So he was shocked to the core when Potter met his eyes and said softly, "This isn't everything you are."

Severus stared at Potter a moment before letting out a harsh laugh. "Isn't it?" Potter shook his head, apparently searching for words, and Severus couldn't help but stare incredulously. Harry Potter was an enigma, that was certain.

"Our choices define us-"

"And I have long since made mine." Severus refused to listen to Albus' rehashed words come out of Potter's mouth. But Potter just looked up at him, determined.

"Then I'm about to make one of my own."

"Whatever are you babbling about now?" Severus snapped, thoroughly sick of listening to Potter. When he'd heard the knock at his door he'd hoped for a distraction from the incessant memories of his time as the Dark Lord's prisoner, not a trip down memory lane with the one other person alive who knew what he had been forced to do- had participated in those vile acts himself. Because… Potter was that, wasn't he? The only other person alive who knew what it felt like to be controlled like that. To have your will entirely stripped away from you; to be nothing but the Dark Lord's plaything, made to do as he bid. To insistently rebel in your mind but feel your body disobey you, to watch in increasingly detached horror as one after another after another suffered at your own hands…

"Voldemort-"

Severus hissed in anger, drawn from his thoughts by Potter's words. "Do not speak his name!"

There was sadness in Potter's eyes. "He's dead, Severus," he said softly. "He can't hurt us anymore, or anyone else." Potter paused a moment, but Severus didn't take the opportunity to speak. "I was going to say- he doesn't control you. Not anymore. The mark-" Potter reached out a hand to touch it, and then, to Severus' relief, seemed to think better of it- "If it really means so much to you, I'll find a way to remove it."

Severus couldn't help but laugh at this, completely taken aback by Potter's gall. "You arrogant fool," he said, looking at Potter dead-on. "You think you can remove this? I have spent twenty years trying to do that very same thing, Potter. I have borne this mark since before you were born, and others fought to remove their own long before that. _Albus Dumbledore_ has put countless hours into researching a method to relieve me of it, and I have spent every moment I could spare in a futile attempt to remove this abomination from my skin. The idea that you could somehow make progress where for years there has been none is laughable at best."

Potter had the grace to look slightly subdued. But then- "Maybe. But at least you'll have company while you research. And you never know, I could come up with something."

As if he wanted the brat around all the time! "Potter-"

"Do you really think Albus would have hired me if he didn't think I could teach my class, Severus? I wasn't just good at Defense in school, I've taken the time to learn loads about it. I have tons of books, and I'm sure Hermione still has her notes on the protean charm from the DA- it's probably nothing you haven't looked into but you never know and…"

Severus stared, aghast, as Potter continued to list research avenues, trying to process the fact that he was serious about this. The boy was infuriatingly capricious; hadn't he been in tears just minutes before? Severus simply watched him, hardly listening, as he prattled on and on. His face was animated, and he gestured wildly with his hands as he spoke. The energy he exuded was almost intoxicating. "-and then we can-"

Severus shook himself. "Potter!" he snapped, now desperate to have this man out of his chambers.

Potter blinked, startled, his hands in mid-gesture. Then he smiled, his hands falling to his sides. "Of course. I keep rambling on, but I'm not doing much of anything am I? All right, I'll go owl Hermione about those notes and unearth those books I mentioned, oh, and I'll be sure to ask Albus for his copy of that Dark Artes series again, and-" Potter was halfway out the door, and Severus was no closer to understanding what had just taken place, or the maddening young man who had taken up residence in so much of his life. Potter twisted the knob and turned back to Severus as he opened the door. "All right Severus, I'll see you tomorrow!" he chirped, eyes shining. "Ten o'clock?" And without waiting for an answer, he was gone.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Since the door had shut with a small click signaling Potter's departure, Severus had done nothing but run the bizarre conversation they'd had over and over in his mind. There were so many questions he found himself unable to answer. Why had Potter wanted to help him? _Did_ Potter want to help him? What made him think he could? And the most vexing of all- why did Severus have a niggling feeling that he'd be disappointed if he didn't come back?

He'd eaten lunch and dinner mechanically, aborted an attempt to grade a few exams, and proceeded to find himself unable to sleep that night. He'd tossed and turned, his usual visions of his capture by the Dark Lord obscured by those of Potter; smiling, crying, laughing, babbling, as a student, last night, at the beginning of the year, and yes, during those hellish weeks, but somehow that night the horror of those events abated and he was able to simply focus on Potter's face. The torment in his eyes, so similar to his own. The struggle, the guilt, the pain. He woke up to the startling realization that his and Potter's lives hadn't been so different.

At five til ten, anxious beyond reason and angry with himself for it, Severus' mental pacing came to an abrupt halt when he heard a knock at his door. He froze a moment, disbelieving, then quickly stood to open the door before Potter could knock again.

"Good morning, Severus!" Potter chirped, carrying an armful of books and a backpack full of them slung across his shoulder. He shuffled past Severus and walked to the front of the room, slumping the books down on Severus' desk. "Sleep well?"

He turned his head to him expectantly, and Severus shook himself out of his shock. "Potter," he began, his tone not as harsh as he had been trying for, "Christmas is in four days. The Weasleys-"

"Don't need me. Not like this."

Severus bristled, squaring his shoulders and standing up straighter. "I do not need you for anything, Potter-"

"All right, bad choice of words," Potter said, pulling a book from the top of the stack and making himself comfortable in the chair opposite Severus'. "I can't help the Weasleys any, and I can help you. All right?"

"Potter-"

"Honestly, they'll hardly even notice I'm gone. This way we can keep each other company."

"You are assuming I desire your company, when I can assure you-"

"Severus." Potter snapped the book in his hands closed and refocused his gaze on him. "I want to do this, all right? I want to help you. I want to free you from this, and to earn your friendship. Will you please just give me a chance?"

And Severus couldn't fight it any longer. He was so very tired of fighting, of having to constantly struggle for everything in life. He wanted… He wanted…

He wanted Potter to stay.

He inclined his head once, sharply, and walked across the room to sit down at his desk. "Very well. Notes of Miss Granger's, you said?"

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Christmas morning Potter walked into his office promptly at ten, as had become his habit, with a wide grin splitting his features, which was also customary. "Good morning, Severus," he said, crossing the room to Severus' desk, and this was the norm as well except today he carried a brightly wrapped package and held a thick sheaf of parchment in his hands. "Hermione's notes arrived today," he informed him, waving the papers in the air to illustrate his point before setting them down on the desk. "And here," he continued, extending the package to Severus. "Happy Christmas."

For a moment Severus couldn't bring himself to move, and then he reached out and took it. Their hands brushed as he did so, and for the first time in so very long he felt less alone. He pulled the gift back to himself and forced his hands not to shake, fighting so many emotions he couldn't describe and not beginning to know how to put what he was feeling into words. At last he simply met the man's eyes, his own full of emotion, and said, "Thank you, Harry."

And it was worth it to see the wide grin break out across Potter's face.

~fin~

Mandatum is Latin for "command".


End file.
